Faculty of medicine researchers received national funding for work on COVID-19 virus variants.
The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Health, announced a total investment of $14.3 million from the Canadian government, through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
This includes $5.3 million in supplementary funding for 90 ongoing COVID-19 projects and $9 million for a new national network that will coordinate and align variants research throughout the country.
Thirteen ongoing projects led by UBC researchers were awarded a total of $939,626 in supplementary funding through the SARS-CoV-2 variants supplement: COVID-19 Rapid Research Funding Opportunity streams.
The Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network, or CoVaRR-Net, will be led by Dr. Marc-AndrÂŽ Langlois from the University of Ottawa. Dr. Langlois and his team will collaborate with the Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Lab, the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network, provincial and territorial public health labs, and other national and international bodies.
UBC faculty of medicine co-investigators in the network include Nozomu Yachie, Manish Sadarangani and Terry Snutch.